If you have a website, you have probably heard of web hosting, but chances are that you aren’t really sure what web hosting really means. You know you have to have a host but how do you know whether you have the right company and whether you have the best hosting for your site? This article has solid advice for helping you figure that out.
If you find facets of your current web hosting provider unsatisfactory, check out potential alternative back up options. You can then make the change to another web hosting service with more ease and less disruption, if your current service proves to be too unreliable or completely crashes.
When transferring your site between hosts, have a copy of your website at both your old and new hosts for a few days. It’s important to do this because it takes 6-48 hours for the DNS to propagate. During this time, some visitors will be sent to your old website, while others whose ISPs have updated their DNS info will be sent to your new site.
If you have been used to the same web host for several months, look at the availability of your website. An availability of 99% or more means your website is accessible all the time. If you notice a lower availability rate, look for a web host that does not encounter as many outages.
Choose a web hosting service that offer multiple databases for you to access if needed. This can include the ability to store information about your products, as well as your customers. You should be able to easily look at prior purchases and the personal information about who is buying your products.
Ensure that you choose a web host that provides both cPanel and Fantastico. CPanel can assist you in controlling and maintaining your website easily by using this control panel that is very user friendly. Fantastico is a strong script installer that lets you install scripts in only two minutes instead of the thirty minutes that it takes to install them manually. Both these features can be extremely useful for you. If the host you’re considering selecting doesn’t provide both of these, then you may want to consider finding another host.
As you shop for web hosting service, look for providers that offer a variety of site analytical tools and traffic monitoring. Get a visitor counter on your site, and compare this number to the statistics given to you by your web host. You benefit from this information as you can tailor your site to suit your visitor base.
Consider how much downtime the web host will have when looking for one. These downtimes vary from 10% to .000001%. This means that there could be hours of downtime per week or as little as seconds. Select a host with the lowest amount of downtime that you can find.
Now that you’ve read a bit about web hosting, use these tips to help you find the right hosting for your website. This can be a complicated issue without information, but the advice in this article has provided you with a sturdy foundation you can stand on. Best wishes with your site!